The Off Topic Topic

[Richard Hakluyt]

I believe the migrant boat disaster would have received more attention if an individual human interest story had emerged. Recall the huge concern over the death of Alan Kurdi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Alan_Kurdi

There are 1.35m road deaths per annum, or around 3700 per day; but, as Stalin is reported to have said "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic".

[viper37]

I believe the migrant boat disaster would have received more attention if an individual human interest story had emerged. Recall the huge concern over the death of Alan Kurdi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Alan_Kurdi

There are 1.35m road deaths per annum, or around 3700 per day; but, as Stalin is reported to have said "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic".

The news cared a lot the first 8-9 times it happened.
The same with the Ukraine war.  Massacres are no longer frontpage newsworthy.
It was the same with the Irak war.

[Sheilbh]

I'd add that I've heard the sub story in the British press, in terms of engagement, has been the biggest since the death of the Queen.

[Josquius]

The Kursk film was recently shown on BBC2. The Titanic was famously discovered by the sister sub of the Russian sub involved there (hence my earlier question). It was a fairly big story with the whole Brits offering to help and being fobbed off thing when it happened.
I wonder whether there's echos of that coming through.

[mongers]

Luckily it seems that the leader of it is one of the unhappy souls on the vessel and I hope that he still is alive to ponder what he could have done differently.

At least he went down with the ship so to speak. Designing and operating a safer craft would have been a lot more expensive and would have pushed the price tag out of the well-off range, severely limiting their potential client base.  

Yeah, I cannot see the benefit of using carbon-fibre other than cost cutting, as I'd guess Titanium/alloys provide an near ideal metal to make the main hull out of?

Titanium in submersibles is good for things like framing, but not for hull plating.  It gets brittle at very low temperatures, like those at the depths of the Titanic.

Thanks, I had only limited experience working with titanium/oxides and that was at UK ambient or higher temperatures.

[frunk]

Scott Manley had a great live stream on OceanGate.  It's a meandering conversation, but lots of interesting bits.

[HVC]

The orca army (navy? ) has turned north.

A new attack on a boat off the Shetland islands

[Admiral Yi]

I saw a billboard advertising scooters @ 1399 and ebikes @ 1488.

How can it cost more to build an ebike than a scooter? 

[mongers]

I saw a billboard advertising scooters @ 1399 and ebikes @ 1488.

How can it cost more to build an ebike than a scooter? 

Over here scooters are typically those childlike things with tiny wheels, but also sometimes a format for sit on italian style motorbikes, so I'm guessing maybe it an electric version of one of those referred to in the advert?

As to you point, I guess economies of scale, less ebikes are made so higher unit cost?
 

[Jacob]

I saw a billboard advertising scooters @ 1399 and ebikes @ 1488.

How can it cost more to build an ebike than a scooter? 

I just saw a post somewhere saying the minimum cost for a quality e-bike battery is about $800 (might be CDN, but the principle stands). Cheaper than that, and you risk the kind of explosions/ fires you occasionally hear about. So if you see an e-bike all up for $800 (or less), know that you're taking a risk.

So it could very well be that the Scooter has a better quality battery, a more powerful motor, better build quality, fancier brakes, and more doodads of various sorts while the bike is a lower quality build.

[Admiral Yi]

I think you might mean the opposite.

[Josquius]

I saw a billboard advertising scooters @ 1399 and ebikes @ 1488.

How can it cost more to build an ebike than a scooter? 

I just saw a post somewhere saying the minimum cost for a quality e-bike battery is about $800 (might be CDN, but the principle stands). Cheaper than that, and you risk the kind of explosions/ fires you occasionally hear about. So if you see an e-bike all up for $800 (or less), know that you're taking a risk.

So it could very well be that the Scooter has a better quality battery, a more powerful motor, better build quality, fancier brakes, and more doodads of various sorts while the bike is a lower quality build.

There really needs to be some serious coordinated action against these low quality exploding batteries from you know where.

Alas quality has such a light relationship with price.

[Jacob]

I think you might mean the opposite.

Well I suppose. I misread your question as the opposite, and I'm surprised you think the component parts of a scooter are likely more expensive than those of a bike. But you're right, the inverse point holds - build and component quality for both types of product are probably variable enough that either one can be more expensive than the other.

Assuming, of course, you mean something like this when you say scooter.

[Maladict]

I think this is all I need to know about Kentucky.

A Kentucky woman who was charged with shooting an Uber driver in El Paso, Texas, after believing she was being kidnapped, has been charged with murder after the driver died from his injuries.

On June 16, Phoebe Copas, 48, of Tompkinsville, Kentucky, was in an Uber driven by 52-year-old Daniel Piedra Garcia.

The El Paso Police Department said a preliminary investigation found Copas was heading to El Paso's Mission Valley, and at some point, she thought she was being taken into Mexico.

According to an arrest affidavit, Copas began seeing signs to "Juarez, Mexico," which is located across the U.S.-Mexico border from El Paso.

Fearing she was being kidnapped and taken to Mexico, the affidavit notes, Copas allegedly grabbed a handgun from her purse and shot Piedra in the head.

Piedra's vehicle came to a stop after crashing into barriers on a freeway, though it was not close to a bridge or port of entry into Mexico.

In a news release, police said the investigation does not support that a kidnapping happened or that Piedra went off track from Copas' destination.

Copas allegedly took a picture of Piedra after the shooting and texted it to her boyfriend, police said.

[Caliga]

Tompkinsville is in the 'Third World' part of the state.